According to the 8th National Survey of Youth Sexual Behavior, the percentage of high school students who have had sexual intercourse is 19.3% for girls and 13.6% for boys.
At the age of 18, the year they graduate from high school, they have the right to vote, and according to civil law, they can marry on their own will, and premarital sex has become the norm.However, is the first dating experience of a high school student really an experience with a person who seriously thought about it?
A few years ago, when I was conducting research on HPV (human papillomavirus) infection rates and preventive vaccines, a student who cooperated with the research as a subject was infected with a high-risk type of HPV.
As a result of the cervical cancer screening, this student was positive for atypical cells, and it was decided to continue the examination every three months.
She said, "When I was in high school, I had sexual relations with two men. I didn't particularly like them, but I somehow experienced it... When I was in junior high school, I had a teacher's sex education, and I didn't have sex. I didn't..." he said with tears.
Everyone goes through their first sexual intercourse without knowing that they will be infected with a sexually transmitted disease. Some students have the misunderstanding that they want to experience what intercourse is like as soon as possible.But you don't have to rush to have sex.Especially for girls, there are problems of pregnancy and contracting sexually transmitted diseases, which greatly affect their later life.
Ms. Ako, a first-year high school student, went to see a doctor because she suspected she was pregnant, but she was not only pregnant, but also infected with condyloma acuminata.In a survey of high school students, when asked, "Which are you more aware of during sexual intercourse, pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease?"On the other hand, there are cases when people contact the Sexual Health and Medical Foundation email consultations because they don't have accurate knowledge and are worried about sexually transmitted diseases more than necessary.I want you to learn accurate knowledge about sexually transmitted diseases by the time you graduate from high school.
In recent years, the number of young women infected with syphilis has been increasing, but the number of syphilis-infected people continues to increase without elucidating the cause. It's a hot topic.
The Japanese Society of Sexually Infectious Diseases has created a medical guideline for syphilis and has begun educational activities for general medicine and the general public.
Sexually transmitted diseases are a general term for diseases that spread through sexual intercourse. Genital chlamydia, gonorrhea, genital herpes, and condyloma acuminata are four fixed-point detections, while syphilis and AIDS require reporting of all cases. It's a disease.In particular, chlamydia infections are increasing among high school and university students.There are no subjective symptoms, and people are unknowingly infected with the virus. It is said that the risk of contracting AIDS is four times higher if you have this infection.
The Japanese Society for Sexually Transmitted Diseases and the Japanese Society for Adolescent Studies are continuing to discuss how sex education should be taught, when, where, and by whom information about sexually transmitted diseases should be conveyed.
Seven years ago, the Sexual Health Medical Foundation began training sexual health counselors.
Sexual activity is an extremely private act, and it is noticeable that even though people think it is dangerous with reason, they leave it up to their emotions and later regret it.In order to self-manage sexual behavior, it is important not only to have knowledge about sexuality, but also to develop the experience of suppressing one's desires from an early age and the ability to look at oneself objectively and criticize oneself.
The aim of sex education is to "complete a rich personality," and to acquire a well-balanced understanding of the three aspects of sexuality: reproductiveness, solidarity, and pleasure, and to develop a sense of one's own sexual values. Thing.Sex is an act that creates life, and in the encounter with a partner who lives together, we share the pleasures with a heart of compassion and love.Do not seek only pleasure unnecessarily.
Together with my students, I conduct sexuality education at junior and senior high schools under the theme of "the baton of life."Based on the teaching materials, we have received a subsidy from the Institute of Health and Welfare and are promoting the development of teaching materials for sexually transmitted disease prevention in compulsory education.This year, we plan to try out and evaluate the developed teaching materials and complete them so that they can be used in schools.
[Reference]
Japan Association for Sexual Education: ``Sexuality of Youth'' White Paper, 8th National Survey of Youth Sexual Behavior, Shogakukan, 2019
